Senate Committee passes new antitrust bill aimed at Big Tech companies

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act AICOA, a bill that forbids Big Tech platforms like Apple, Alphabet Google’s parent company, and Amazon from generally behaving in an anti-competitive manner, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee late last week with a 16-6 vote. US Senator Am...

The Log4j Vulnerability Puts Pressure on the Security World

It’s not my intention to be alarmist about the Log4j vulnerability CVE-2021-44228, known as Log4Shell, but this one is pretty bad. First of all, Log4j is a ubiquitous logging library that is very widely used by millions of computers. Second, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure...

The FTC Wants Companies to Find Log4j Fast. It Won't Be Easy

The critical vulnerability is buried among endless open source code, and many cyber experts are stumped...

EoL Systems Stonewalling Log4j Fixes for Fed Agencies

Last month, federal agencies were given a Christmas Eve deadline – Dec. 24 – to address the “extremely concerning” Log4j and other vulnerabilities. Nobody said it would be easy. Besides the difficulty of tracking down all instances of the ubiquitous Apache logging library, the job of patching the...

FTC to Go After Companies that Ignore Log4j

The Federal Trade Commission FTC will muster its legal muscle to pursue companies and vendors that fail to protect consumer data from the risks of the Log4j vulnerabilities, it warned on Tuesday. “The FTC intends to use its full legal authority to pursue companies that fail to take reasonable ste...

Update to GLBA Security Requirements for Financial Institutions

Heads up financial institutions: the Federal Trade Commission FTC announced the first cybersecurity updates to the Gramm Leach-Bliley Act GLBA Safeguards Rule since 2003. The new rule strengthens the required security safeguards for customer information. This includes formal risk assessments,...

FCC Proposal Targets SIM Swapping, Port-Out Fraud

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission FCC is asking for feedback on new proposed rules to crack down on SIM swapping and number port-out fraud, increasingly prevalent scams in which identity thieves hijack a targets mobile phone number and use that to wrest control over the victims online...

A week in security (August 30 – September 5)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs ProxyToken: another nail-biter from Microsoft Exchange Macs turn on apps signed by Symantec, treat them as malware Google Play sign-ins can be abused to track another person’s movements FTC bans SpyFone and its CEO from continuing to sell stalkerware BrakTooth...

SpyFone & CEO Banned From Stalkerware Biz

The Federal Trade Commission FTC has kicked spyware maker SpyFone out of the surveillance business. The same goes for its CEO, Scott Zuckerman, and Support King LLC, the company behind the stalkerware. In a Wednesday announcement, the FTC slammed SpyFone, calling it a stalkerware app that sold...

FTC Bans Stalkerware App SpyFone; Orders Company to Erase Secretly Stolen Data

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday banned a stalkerware app company called SpyFone from the surveillance business over concerns that it stealthily harvested and shared data on people's physical movements, phone use, and online activities that were then used by stalkers and domestic...

FTC bans SpyFone and its CEO from continuing to sell stalkerware

Nearly two years after the US Federal Trade Commission first took aim against mobile apps that can non-consensually track people’s locations and pry into their emails, photos, and videos, the government agency placed restrictions Wednesday on the developers of SpyFone—which the FTC called a...

Romance scams: FTC reveals $304 million of heartache

In 2020, reported losses to the FTC for romance scams went up by 50% from 2019, totalling $304 million. And things werent exactly good before: Romance scams have cost people a fortune for 3 years running, according to the FTC. Their latest report suggests a steady rise in these kind of scams...

Cybercrooks Rake in $304M in Romance Scams

Romance scams remain the most successful fraud strategy for cybercrooks, and represents a growing sector, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Last year, romance schemes accounted for a record $304 million raked into illicit coffers, according to new data – up about 50 percent from 2019...

FTC Reports Scammers Impersonating FTC

The Federal Trade Commission FTC has released information on scammers attempting to impersonate the FTC. The scammers operate an FTC-spoofed website that claims to provide instant cash payments and tries to trick consumers into disclosing their financial information. The real FTC does not require...

The FTC Cracks Down on Bot-Wielding Ticket Scalpers

Plus: A security company creeper, Biden’s cyberteam, and the rest of this week’s security news...

48 U.S. States and FTC are suing Facebook for illegal monopolization

The US Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 48 state attorneys general on Wednesday filed a pair of sweeping antitrust suits against Facebook, alleging that the company abused its power in the marketplace to neutralize competitors through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp and...

Zoom Takes on Zoom-Bombers Following FTC Settlement

Zoom has once again upped its security controls to prevent “Zoom-bombing” and other cyberattacks on meetings. The news comes less than a week after Zoom settled with the Federal Trade Commission over false encryption claims. Two of the new features allow moderators to act as “club bouncers,” givi...

Former Uber CSO Charged With Paying ‘Hush Money’ in 2016 Breach Cover-Up

A former Uber security executive has been charged for his role in the cover-up of a massive 2016 data breach, in which attackers accessed the company’s Amazon Web Services accounts and stole data associated with 57 million passengers and drivers. The U.S. State Attorney for the Northern District ...

Former Uber Security Chief Charged Over Covering Up 2016 Data Breach

The federal prosecutors in the United States have charged Uber's former chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, for covering up a massive data breach that the ride-hailing company suffered in 2016. According to the press release published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Sullivan "took deliberate...

Twitter Fixes High-Severity Flaw Affecting Android Users

Twitter has fixed a vulnerability in its Android app, which could have enabled attackers to access private Twitter data, like direct messages DMs on Android devices. The flaw is related to an underlying Android operating system OS security issue CVE-2018-9492, which affects operating system...